.

At that instant Vronsky came up.

"Well, since it's impossible tonight, let us start," she said,
not noticing Vronsky's bow, and she hastily put her hand on
Korsunsky's shoulder.

"What is she vexed with him about?" thought Kitty, discerning
that Anna had intentionally not responded to Vronsky's bow.
Vronsky went up to Kitty reminding her of the first quadrille,
and expressing his regret that he had not seen her all this time.
Kitty gazed in admiration at Anna waltzing, and listened to him.
She expected him to ask her for a waltz, but he did not, and she
glanced wonderingly at him. He flushed slightly, and hurriedly
asked her to waltz, but he had only just put his arm round her
waist and taken the first step when the music suddenly stopped.
Kitty looked into his face, which was so close to her own, and
long afterwards--for several years after--that look, full of
love, to which he made no response, cut her to the heart with an
agony of shame.

"_Pardon! pardon!_ Waltz! waltz!" shouted Korsunsky from the other
side of the room, and seizing the first young lady he came across
he began dancing himself.

Chapter 23

Vronsky and Kitty waltzed several times round the room. After
the first waltz Kitty went to her mother, and she had hardly time
to say a few words to Countess Nordston when Vronsky came up
again for the first quadrille. During the quadrille nothing of
any significance was said: there was disjointed talk between
them of the Korsunskys, husband and wife, whom he described very
amusingly, as delightful children at forty, and of the future
town theater; and only once the conversation touched her to the
quick, when he asked her about Levin, whether he was here, and
added that he liked him so much. But Kitty did not expect much
from the quadrille. She looked forward with a thrill at her
heart to the mazurka. She fancied that in the mazurka everything
must be decided. The fact that he did not during the quadrille
ask her for the mazurka did not trouble her. She felt sure she
would dance the mazurka with him as she had done at former balls,
and refused five young men, saying she was engaged for the
mazurka. The whole ball up to the last quadrille was for Kitty
an enchanted vision of delightful colors, sounds, and motions.
She only sat down when she felt too tired and begged for a rest.
But as she was dancing the last quadrille with one of the
tiresome young men whom she could not refuse, she